Jerykk wrote on Aug 20, 2012, 22:41:PST was great in spite of the license, not because of it. There's really no reason why a spiritual successor couldn't be superior in every way. Why limit yourself to a D&D setting and rule set when you can create something genuinely new and unique?

Planescape was one of the most unique fantasy settings to come along in a long time. Torment succeeded because it had an amazing story that was shaped through your conversations. The Planescape setting was garnish, but tasty garnish.

However, in reference to all of the old D&D settings that lie by the wayside these days, they 1. weren't particularly popular over the years and 2. were not mega-genre settings, like fucking eberron and forgotten realms. Even Dragonlance got fucked in 4th because it wasn't monster manual friendly like Eberron, which was specifically designed to use all D&D material (which is why it won the stupid "make a campaign setting" contest all those years ago).

PST was great in spite of the license, not because of it. There's really no reason why a spiritual successor couldn't be superior in every way. Why limit yourself to a D&D setting and rule set when you can create something genuinely new and unique?

I assume he wants to do his own thing because Planescape license meant to have tons of stuff dictated which affected gameplay in a way he didn't like or in a way that would mean compromising his own artistic vision.

It'd be best not to use [the Dungeons & Dragons] mechanics or the Planescape license. One reason is doing so would undermine some of the joys of the Kickstarter (not having to answer to anyone but the players – if we take a license, we have to answer to the franchise holder), I'm not sure Wizards/Hasbro/whoever knows where to take the license, and looking back on Planescape: Torment, it's been clear to me that we had to bend a lot of rules to get some of the mechanics and narrative feel we wanted. Could we have done that easier outside of a Planescape universe? Sure.

Yeah, but Torment - in and of itself - is a cool effing IP. WOTC is and always has been the problem because they were TCG guys, not PnP guys. They've never had the first clue what to do with the various D&D related IPs Had TSR been able to hang on all the D&D IPs would probably be huge right now.

Fuck a duck! They could utilize the shit of this and their IPs to great effect! Planescape, Greyhawk, Spelljammer, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Al Qadim, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, et al. all just sitting around begging to be made into games.

Whilst, I have no doubt that Avellone and co. could do a good spiritual successor with a new IP it simply wouldn't be the same thing. I effing love Jeff Grub's effing Manual of the Planes and how Planescape utilized it. Why start that all over from scratch?

So long as WOTC would be flexible to the idea that could mean a whole new slew of D&D games, or better still...a new NWN style game that would be supported by selling the settings for the various IPs so people could create their own adventures. Ahh, a man, can effing well dream, can't he?

“That's it. You people have stood in my way long enough. I'm going to clown college!”